Birds (2)

[shewhomust]

I wrote in cornwell_feed about last week's book launch for Alistair Robinson's poetry collection, Stereograms of the Dead, so that's the place to go for an account of the event, and a quick overview of the book - bear in mind that I hadn't seen the book before that evening. On the strength of the evening's readings, then, this is the poem I asked Alistair for permission to post here (the more I read, the more poems I find that I really like, Manifesto, say, or If I Were A God. Which isn't to say that I like Birds (2) any less, just that it's a little book full of good things).

Birds (2)
They are like us, but also
completely different. They have
bits of bone-like stuff, sticking
off the front of their faces. Most
do colours better than us. We have been affronted
by their alternative mode of propulsion. They
don't need flutes. We will
catch them because they make it hard
for us to catch them. We will
eat them. We will display them. We will give them
meaning they do not need. When
we're Ancient Egyptian we will
wrap them in sack after they're dead and
fill their bodies with spices and give them faces like ours.
When we're clever we will laugh at such behaviour
and put all our impertinent observations in a book.

---

Birds (2) © Alistair Robinson, 2009, reproduced with permissin
Stereograms of the Dead, Red Squirrel Press